There's definitely no mistaking that fall's in the air, which is fitting given we're officially halfway through the main season! Between the cloudy days and the cooler temperatures, it sure looks like summer is slowly passing us by. For a farm full of fall-lovers and a crew looking at a less frantic work load, you won't hear many complaints around here, but we get that not everyone is looking forward to fall like us. Reality is, our summers are so busy that we don't spend much time enjoying them. When we're not working, we're either thinking about work we should be doing or we're sleeping. Late summer is when we start to see the to-do list shrink a bit for the first time since March, but nonetheless, it's still there in force.
We simply don't know what it'd be like to not have a to-do list loaded with literally 100's of things to do, some big (like building greenhouses), some small (like making quick repairs to irrigation) and some seemingly wish-listed no matter how practical (like getting the barn organized). The past few weeks will have been the biggest for the season and when things get that busy, the goal isn't to complete the to-do list, but merely to prioritize the code-red's on the list to keep things fully functioning until we get a slowdown that allows us to check a few more things off the list (it was once described to us by another farmer as putting out the hottest fires first - which sounds fitting). Needless to say, we're ready for things to slow down a bit so we can shrink that list a bit!
With all of the crazy weather this year, along with the previously discussed carrot troubles and a new variety of beans that went 0 for 2 on germination, we're experiencing a couple weird weeks coming up. The heat in June forced many of our summer crops earlier than usual (melons/tomatoes, etc.) but the fall crops that were planted after all of that heat (broccoli, cabbage, carrots, etc.) are right on schedule, so our variety is going to be down for a couple weeks until things even out once again - though we're still pretty happy with the variety we have (we just know we could have a little more - but we also know we can't win every battle around here).
Our fall crops are all looking awesome and the coming weather looks about perfect for many of them, so we're pretty excited about what the remainder of the season should bring. We're diligently seeding in the greenhouse to load the hoophouses for our late fall season. This time of year, as we've mentioned before, timing is key to getting a good crop - seeding a crop just a few days apart will result in 1+ week difference in harvest timing because of decreasing daylight and temperatures.
So, after all of this talk of planning and tackling to-do lists, it's probably time for us to go do a little of both!
Have a great week!
-Brendan & Greta
